Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Also, hello. And welcome to the blog. Jon, Keith, Asan and I are very happy to see you. Well, Keith is perishing and Jon and Asan are still living the high life in LA. But I'm very happy to see you.

Mainly because I'm having booze for the first time in 30 days. Oh wine, how I've missed you.

I am currently on a layover in Philly, having suffered through my own pile of shenanigans just trying to get this far into my journey. This morning, I had an Über driver (who we shall also call “Dave”) who was, to say it gently, a complete fucking idiot. He had literally no idea how to get to the airport. He pulled out a Garmin GPS system from the 1940's and asked me for the address for LAX.

“It’s LAX,” I said. “The Airport.”

He replied, “Do you want to tell me how to get there?”

…

Agitation ensued.

I had to whip out my Waze app because, well, I don’t know how to get to the airport without her. BUT it’s not my job to know these things! So, cram it.

The entire ride consisted of the Waze woman yelling directions from my phone, followed by the driver asking, “WHAT? PARDON ME? WHAT DID SHE SAY?” And then me having to repeat the instructions. Loudly.

Not a fan of the Uber, as it turns out.

Upon getting on my flight, I was treated with a trans person (Combo Transient/Transgender) who was clearly having some intestinal difficulties which wafted directly into my nostrils. You people shit like animals....sometimes in your own pants.

I’ve never been so relieved for a layover in my life.

BUT that’s only the latest in the struggle to get this road trip off the ground! (Cue segue...) It's been a while since some combo of Keith, Jon, Asan and I went on a bloggy vacation adventure, mainly because it took us like three years to come up with a name for this blog. As always, this seems to be the most difficult portion of the trip. (Although my Über driver was vying pretty hard for the title this morning…)

Anyway, we obviously settled on the blog you see before you: Scandalnavia. But the process was bad. Like brütally bad.

Jon, Keith, Asan and I had a few brainstorming sessions that qucikly turned into shitstorming sessions, which resulted in a flood of terrible titles.

Titles like:

Seriously.

Personally, I liked the simple and elegant ...

But I was outvoted.

We even discussed a tribute to our last road trip blog, the Stabbey Road Trip, with this:

Because Abba was discovered during Eurovision in 1903. Then somehow, we landed on Scandalnavia. Which presented a whole lot of crazy on its own:

We abandoned this idea briefly for Keith's brainchild:

...which I secretly still love.

But Keith and I got outvoted. Although there are only two other people involved, so I'm not sure how that happened.

And so, Scandalnavia was born. And reborn.

So, although it's been a crazy journey--and it's only day zero... we will survive. Maybe. Because we're tough.

So after the boarding pass debacle I get to the gate only to be given back my boarding pass that someone turned in (who was clearly not stupid "Susan")

So all seemed well until this happened...

What the crap, if I can figure out how to work a computer, why can't they figure out how to make the plane computer thingy work? (And yes that is the technical name for it)

I just wanna board the stupid plane! It's already a disaster and I haven't even left the dang airport yet...

Now Jeff is going to have to come find me at my terminal. The last time Jeff tried to navigate London, he ended up wandering around Covent Garden for 2 hours, when he thought he was on the other side of London. So far this trip is going smashingly!

Just got word though that they fixed the problem so I should be on my way in an hour or so and fully enjoying the open bar on the plane

So it's finally here, well for some of us anyway. Jeff and I both are heading out to London today, but of course we can't seem to coordinate anything well so Jeff was on a morning flight through Philly and I'm on a later flight going straight to London.

So I called up my favorite Uber driver "Dave" (who side note, is totally not named Dave, that's like when you call customer service and talk to "Susan", when we all know her name aint Susan)

So I get to the airport, pretty quick actually and I'm pretty stoked because usually when I travel by myself there is some sort of disaster that happens (i.e., the time I left stuff in the airport and just boarded my plane, or that time that I washed my wallet with all my credit cards on the first day of my trip, good times)

Most of you reading this already know this story, and already realize that I am an idiot and should not be allowed out alone. But somehow I manage to keep convincing people that I am an adult. Anyway, this time things are looking up, maybe I finally became an adult and didn't realize it!

After checking in I hop in the security line and that is when the first hints of bull-shittery start. There was a passenger behind me, let's call her "Susan" (see above) and she is what I like to call a personal bubble breaker. Meaning, those people that even though there is plenty of room they stand 1/2 of inch from you, despite the fact that you casually or not so casually give them the "back the fuck up" look. It sorta looks like this...

Well "Susan" was not getting the hint so I spent the whole time in the security line looking majorly irritated. I did my best to seem happy to the guy checking my documents, I think I failed. And once I made it through I thought I was rid of stupid "Susan" and sat down to put my shoes back on. But of course, "Susan" missed me so she sat down next to me, and by next to me, I mean on my hand, to which she didn't seem to mind. Stupid "Susan" is very forward...and irritating!

I hurried up and got all my stuff together and ran away from stupid, gropey "Susan". That is the moment went full on bull-shittery began. Turns out I was in such a hurry to get away from stupid gropey "Susan" that I didn't take everything with me...

Noticing anything missing? Oh yeah that would be my boarding pass! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!! I ran around like an idiot looking for it, but I sorta blended in with all the other idiots that don't know where they are going; thanks LAX International Terminal!

It was then that I realized that stupid "Susan" had won!

Damn you "Susan"!!

But then, I say then, but really it was more like 20 minutes of panicking looking for the information desk, only to find out there isn't one. (Thanks again LAX!) I realized that, for some reason last night I decided to download my boarding pass to my phone, just in case...

And alas, there it was, my stupid boarding pass! HAHA, stupid "Susan" you lose!! But really she wins, and it's proof that I am still an idiot and should not be allowed out without handlers.

Seeing that I haven't even gotten on the plane yet, this trip is starting out like all the others, oh god!

I need like 500 more of these!! My plane boards in like an hour, lets hope I make it on it. See you in London Jeff...maybe...